JPMorgan Chase invests in artificial intelligence startup Volley

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) has made a strategic investment in Volley.com, a San Francisco-based startup that uses artificial intelligence to help large enterprises automatically generate training content for employees, the companies said on Tuesday.

FILE PHOTO: A view of the exterior of the JP Morgan Chase & Co. corporate headquarters in New York City May 20, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Segar/Files

The companies declined to disclose the size of the investment, but Volley said it will use the funding to double its team of less than 20 over the next nine months.

JPMorgan’s investment comes as banks increasingly look to use artificial intelligence to make better use of the growing amount of data that they hold across a variety of business lines, ranging from trading to compliance.

The startup is developing software that can process data from disparate sources to create quizzes and other corporate training material such as cyber security or compliance courses.

Its technology can help large companies, including banks, save money and time when creating educational content for employees, Volley founder and chief technology officer Carson Kahn said in an interview.

Volley had initially focused on developing an app for students that used its machine learning engine, but later pivoted to developing technology for enterprises, Kahn added.

New York-based JPMorgan takes equity stakes in young technology companies that can help the bank enhance customer experience, become more efficient and protect its assets.

“Volley’s innovative technology to ingest, integrate and target micro-learning content automatically can fundamentally transform the way firms like ours approach learning and knowledge management,” Joseph Infozino, head of learning platforms at JPMorgan Chase, said in a statement.

Volley’s investors also include Zuckerberg Education Ventures, a fund investing on behalf of Facebook Inc (FB.O) founder Mark Zuckerberg, as well as former global co-heads of technology at Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) Paul Walker and Don Duet.

Walker, also a senior advisor at Volley, said in an interview that the company’s technology could help augment people’s ability to learn by identifying their knowledge gaps and creating personalized content.

“Volley is tackling and solving one of the most difficult and important problems in machine learning: extracting knowledge from unstructured information,” Walker said.